Chapter 155: Symbolic Dread

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29 September 1993, Hogwarts

Susan's burning glare turned towards him, "You're late."

"I'm sorry. A black cat crossed my path, so I had to take the long way around, then I met this fascinating painting called Ser Cadogan, who refused to let me go without a poetry battle. It was such a hard-fought battle that I forgot what I was doing. Then I came here."

The two mages froze at Harry's response as if they were trying to process what was said and trying to make sense of it. He really repressed the urge to burst into laughter at their expressions. Susan just looked lost. They really hadn't spoken to each other ever, and she was very unused to his humour, especially when he was bored.

Because that is what he was, bored. Group projects were theoretically useful. They promoted camaraderie, maybe even a little rivalry. That made students push themselves, and learn more than what they were taught in class out of curiosity or to contribute to the group's effort. However, the whole thing became a mess after Dumbledore took over as headmaster. With him subtly promoting the house rivalries, Slytherins and Gryffindor pairings were very rare, even Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw don't really get along.

 And with the professors only grading the project at the end of the semester, the whole thing turned into a single person doing the entire work, and the other members just not participating. Where before group projects could spark life-long partnerships and friendships, now it was just a way for scions from other houses to partner with each other at the insistence of their parents.

He refused that his group be the same way, so he was going to push them to work, whether they liked to or not, "So, what have you been up to so far?"

Susan fidgeted slightly, "Nothing really, we've been waiting for you to start."

He looked at Neville who nodded, "Alright, the both of you wanted to be in a group with me, so let me just tell you my ground rules. First things first, I don't want any fighting. We can disagree with each other, but if it starts getting violent or if you start yelling at each other. I will leave. The second is that for all of us to benefit, we will use a runic language that none of us understand, which in this case is Hieroglyphs."

"Wait, why?" Neville protested, "We could just use what we learn in class."

"Because I have to get something out of this project too and I already know Elder Futhark."

"You know Runes?" the only Hufflepuff in the room said with an incredulous tone.

"I get bored easily," he simply answered, "Honestly, if we pick most other languages, I could have the project done in an hour or something. Hell, even with Hieroglyphs, it would take me a couple of weeks to do it. Which is why the two of you will be the ones doing most of the work. I'll just verify and go over your work."

Both of Harry's partners looked angry, "You're going to saddle us with all the work? How is that fair?"

"This is me being fair to you. It would be easy for me to finish the entire thing without any of your input. We'll all get an outstanding and we will all have time to focus on our other classes. Believe me, this is more work for me too. But this project is to design and understand how to use Ancient Runes in real life. This is a skill that you have to learn, which is why you'll get the most out of the project if you do it yourselves."

"Prove it," Susan stated.

"Excuse me?" he answered with a confused tone.

"Prove to me that you know how to use Runes. How would we know if you just don't want to do the work?"

Harry rolled his eyes, "Fine."

He grabbed a roll of parchment, took out his quill and drew a small combination of runes on it. It probably looked more complicated than it had a right to be. It was just three runes, one which was mandatory to regulate the power input, one to grow a flame and one to remove the heat.

He waved his wand at the rune and a small purple flame appeared, floating in the air.

Harry gave his two stupefied partners a smug look, "You can touch it. It's not hot."

Susan hesitantly put his hand near the flames and her expression gradually turned into an awed one as she touched the purple fire, "How did you do that?"

Harry waved his wand and extinguished the flame, "That was basic knowledge of runes. Like I said before, I will not be doing your project for you, so the two of you will be responsible for most of the work since you'll be the ones learning the most from it. Your first task for next week will be to look up a few runic schemes in the library that use Hieroglyphs. Try to find a pattern and I want each of you to give me three ideas for our project. We will also start learning the basics about the Egyptian runic alphabet."

"You're giving us homework?" Neville exclaimed.

"Yes. That's what a group project is. We give each other tasks to do individually and then we meet once a week to bring things together. The more you get used to it, and the more you understand how runes work, you will be more comfortable giving ideas and sharing your insights. If you don't like that I'm currently in charge, then learn enough about the runes to control the conversation. Make it so that listening to you is more important than listening to me."

"We barely even know anything about runes," Susan complained.

"How about I give you a little push? The professor immediately started talking about alphabets and properties without really going into how Runes work, so I'll give you a little introduction, alright?"

They both nodded and he started, "Ancient Runes are old languages that somehow have magical properties. As the professor said, they're composed of alphabets, but instead of each letter being a sound, each letter is a concept, which Babbling called properties. For example, the runic scheme that I just showed you is only made up of three letters. One that signified power, another that signified light or enlightenment, and one that signified heat and purification. The power rune accepted my magic and sent it to the rest of the matrix. When I suffused my magic, I channelled the intent of each rune separately, I wanted the light rune to mean fire, and wanted the heat rune to make it so that it doesn't burn. It accepted my commands and worked."

Neville actually started taking notes, "So we always need to channel our intent for each rune for it to work?"

"Not really. Theoretically, someone could do all of this with just the power rune or the light rune but that's if they're experienced and skilled enough to use singular runes with a complex intent. But on the other side, you could use arithmancy to calculate your intent. It's hard to put into words, but that magic that you're putting in can be translated into an arithmetic formula, which can be translated into very complex connections. With that, a single input of magic, without any intent, would power the entire runic scheme. But the runes would have to be unbelievably complex with a lot of connections, especially when the outcome is complicated. It's why we still have Runesmiths to enchant objects for us. But that's something that we would learn in our enchanting elective after our OWLS. In our assignment, we will focus on the happy medium, since each of us will be graded on activating our runic matrix in the second term."

The rest of the group session went that way with Harry essentially tutoring his two partners in runes. It really was a fascinating subject, especially when it came to Egyptian Runes. While he didn't tell Susan and Neville about how ambitious learning this language was for a beginner, what they could benefit from learning this alphabet would affect them for the rest of their lives.

Egyptian Runes were extremely efficient. There was a reason why a lot of tombs still stood after thousands of years and that was because even after so much time, the runes were still stable and working properly. Sure, the alphabet was mostly used in curses and warding, but there were very few magical artefacts from that era, and they were still extremely potent. For example, the sceptre of Ra was still being studied which was discovered a few decades back, but from preliminary analysis, it was filled with so much power that it baffled researchers around the world.

With his obligations to his partners done with, he decided to go back to the Room of Requirements where his friends were probably still waiting for him. By his calculation, they still had a few good minutes before attending their defence class. Ever since he told them about the Hogsmeade attack, they've been very supportive. He really appreciated the efforts they were going through for what is basically a recurring dream he had. Of course, they weren't actually paying for anything, just with their time. Harry wouldn't let them risk their own pocket money on a hunch he had, even if it paid off.

His assumptions about their timings were correct when he found them exiting the room on the seventh floor. Daphne was the first to notice him, "Harry! We didn't expect to see you before class."

"I finished a bit early, so I thought I'd go with you."

"So, how was your first group session," she asked without bothering to hide her irritation at the last part.

"Fine, I guess. It ended up with me teaching them how runes worked, and I gave them some tasks to do for next week's session."

Tracy snickered, "You gave them homework?"

"How else are they going to learn?" he responded confused.

"Well, I'm happy I'm not in your group," Blaise remarked.

They continued bickering on their way to Lupin's classroom. The only piece of information he got was that Blaise got a letter for Borgin and Burkes to reserve that Hand of Glory. It was a bit pricier than Harry thought it would be, and it would only be reserved for a week, but it would do. He really wanted to explore the enchantments on the thing, since it should be able to see through the fog he was creating.

They finally arrived at their defense class soon after, only to groan once more, when they saw that the classroom resembled what it looked like during their first lesson. Lupin had a trend to switch his classroom depending on the type of lesson they had. During normal and theoretical lessons, the classroom looked like a standard classroom with desks, chairs, and a chalkboard. However, during practical lessons, the classroom turned into an expanded space that mirrored the natural habitat of the creatures that they were fighting. Sometimes it was a forest, sometimes it was a field. There was one time it was a lake, but after Seamus Finnigan almost drowned somehow, he couldn't see the professor having permission to do this again. In that particular session, the classroom took the form of a spooky dark forest. 

It was quite the feat of transfiguration and charms and if he was completely honest, Harry thought that it was very useful for teaching defence. Of course, he still didn't trust Lupin one bit, whatever the fuck the man was. He definitely wasn't just a werewolf. Harry had stuck out of the castle just to analyze normal werewolves in Knockturn Alley while under his invisibility cloak.

Their songs were slightly feral, but Lupin was just on another level. Whatever the defence professor was, he definitely wasn't just a werewolf.

Unfortunately, the man was probably their best defence professor yet. He was deeply knowledgeable of the theory and was obviously experienced. If it wasn't for his mysterious nature and his unhealthy interest in Harry, he would have probably liked his classes.

"Welcome, welcome. As you probably noticed, today will be a practical class. We're going to study a particular dark creature that's been very commonly referenced in the news and riddled with both real and fake information."

With a wave of his wand, an illusion of a creature appeared, and people started to panic, "Ah, some of you recognize them. Today, we'll be talking about vampires."

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.